below the cut is a quick n’ dirty how we got here synopsis to reconcile episodes 11 and 12 with the original light novel , as there are discrepancies . though bel is of course a 03 character , my headcanons for the backstory contain brotherhood influences . trigger warnings for : implied abuse , alcoholism , stillbirth , infant death , and body horror during pregnancy .
1878 . upon learning they're expecting a child , zacarías beliso and juana suarez emigrate from the aerugonian colony of córdoba to amestris , the fabled land of opportunity . falsified citizenship documents misspell their surname as belsio , which is the name given to their daughter , marie , born that september .
1881 . zacarías and juana struggle to assimilate to life in a new country , with zacarías especially feeling resentful about his menial job as a fieldhand . the relationship between the two sours as he begins to drown his frustrations in drink , then take them out on his wife . juana plans to leave with her young daughter , but before she's able , she discovers that she's again pregnant . she births a second child they name gabriela on december twenty - third .
1890s . gold is discovered in xenotime . the townspeople make plans to buy the rights to the mines , but wealthy land baron wilhelm mugear arrives and buys them instead , then establishes himself in a huge mansion on the edge of town . the economy and population of xenotime boom .
1897 . after years of alcohol abuse , zacarías dies of liver failure . fifteen - year - old gabriela goes to the town mortuary to make funeral arrangements , there meeting and befriending the morticians' son nash tringham .
1898 . miners discover the unrefined red water spring , a natural yet toxic alchemic amplifier ; it makes several people ill before the area is closed off , though gabriela snags a sample for budding alchemist nash to study . later , gabriela and nash become lovers , and gabriela's sister marie becomes engaged to boyfriend tobias lemac , who epitomizes xenotime's more conservative , backwards ideals .
1899 . nash leaves xenotime to try for the state alchemist's exam in central city , and his romantic relationship ( though not friendship ) with gabriela ends . gabriela begins an apprenticeship with eleanor zhang , an accomplished jeweler from west amestris , while nash fails the exam but scores high enough to bring him to the attention of tim marcoh , who makes nash his assistant . later , nash marries allison fischer , a central city librarian ; gabriela attends the wedding and presents publicly as male for the first time .
1900 . marie and tobias marry . nash and allison have a son they name russell .
1901 . civil war breaks out in ishval when a soldier kills an ishvalan child , supposedly by accident .
1902 . nash and allison have their second child , fletcher .
1903 . foreseeing the collapse of the golden age and feeling unhappy as a smith , gabriela buys a small cottage on the outskirts of town , fixes it up , and resolves to work the land for a living . he also decides to live as a man , cutting his hair and shedding his first name to instead be known as simply belsio .
1906 . marie and tobias have a daughter they name elisabeth danielle , or elisa for short .
1908 . sara and urey rockbell , doctors who treated wounded on both sides of the ishvalan conflict , are killed , and their deaths used to fuel anti - ishvalan sentiment . fuhrer king bradley issues executive order number thirty sixty - six , ordering the extermination of anyone with more than one - third ishvalan ancestry . tim marcoh deserts to become a traveling doctor , leaving nash to continue his illicit work in laboratory five .
1909 . the ishval civil war ends with surviving ishvalans scattered throughout amestris as refugees . as soldiers return home to a declining xenotime , mugear begins commissioning research for a philosopher's stone that will restore the town to its former glory . in central , nash abandons his post , taking his wife and children with him as he goes on the run and dropping all contact with belsio . marie and tobias conceive a second child .
1910 . displeased with belsio's adamant insistence that there's no going back to gold , mugear tries to convince him to stand down , first politely , then by having his guards break into his house in the middle of the night , burn his garden to ashes , and threaten to set him on fire . allison dies of a heart attack , and nash leaves russell and fletcher on the outskirts of xenotime to wait while he makes sure they'll be safe , reuniting with belsio ; he holes himself up in belsio's house drinking himself senseless while mugear and the townspeople plead with him to assist with mugear's stone research .
though at first standing by belsio's side , nash ultimately caves and turns his back , agreeing to work for mugear and resume his research on the stone and the red water , which starts making the townspeople sick . mugear tries to convince nash to experiment on the people of xenotime by introducing the red water into the drinking supply , thereby forcing pregnant people to ingest it so that their bodies will synthesize prototype philosopher's stones in place of their fetuses . nash , desperate to talk him down , tests the method on marie , who along with elisa becomes very ill . she delivers a crystallized , stillborn fetus at the nine - month mark and then falls into a coma ; she's rushed to east city while elisa is left behind , believed to be too sick to survive the trip .
nash confesses all when belsio confronts him , insinuates his plan to kill mugear , but is instead captured , tortured , and ultimately murdered . marcoh arrives in xenotime and heals many of its sick , including elisa , with his real philosopher's stone , while marie slowly makes a recovery in an east city hospital , though the poison has done irreparable damage on her body , leaving her dependent on oxygen and a wheelchair for the rest of her life . she becomes a permanent resident of a sanatorium in east amestris , cutting herself off emotionally from her toxic husband , though they remain legally married . the people of xenotime reel from the mysterious plague that decimated its population , particularly its children and elderly , while belsio picks up his own pieces .
1914 . russell and fletcher tringham , posing as state alchemist edward elric and his brother , arrive in xenotime .
